


hypothecate

by arsenouselation



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: F/M, Gen, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 15:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1749278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenouselation/pseuds/arsenouselation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Memory and desire, stirring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hypothecate

Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain.  
Winter kept us warm, covering  
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding  
A little life with dried tubers.  
-T. S. Eliot,  _The Wasteland_

* * *

Winter  
is bitter.

Everything is enveloped in snow and dirt.  
 _Purification, putrefaction,_ Rin mouths each syllable; times them with the sweep, sweep of her broom. She sees the grime embrace the snow, the snow embracing the grime, like the prayers of old.

Mucus threatens to trickles down her nose, so Rin looks up, sniffs.

Rin watches the horizon of this cold and harsh wasteland, pity swirling in her gut (for the gods, for playing an enormously ironic joke upon the world—and themselves).

And out of this horizon comes a boy with the eyes of spring. He is barefoot, dirty, shoddy, cloaked with the weight of loss.

"Tell me your name," Rin demands, the self-proclaimed sovereign of brooms and buckets.

The boy, black-blue with the cold, stranger to no-man's land, shuffles his bare feet, looks Rin dead (dead!) in the eye. He mumbles,  _I don't know._

—

When Rin brings the boy to (stay with) Kamajii, he asks no questions. He takes a long, intent look at their clasped hands then to the set expression on Rin's cold, cold face.

Kamajii clears his throat, goes back to work: "You know what entails your decision."

those who come to the bathhouse never leave, is what he doesn't say. He has learned not to—not that it made a difference, anyway. There are always eyes in dark corners: the mistress knows everything that goes on in her palace.

Beyond the firelight, a shadow lurks, watching, watching.

 

* * *

 

"Name, name, name, what could be your name?"

_I don't know._

"You have to know, it's your name! You have to know your name!"

The boy looks at her, his eyes asking,  _and you, shouldn't you know yours?_

 

* * *

 

Rin remembers the yellow rose more than anything.

It is spring and the bathhouse is renewed from its winter sleep. All the workers are busy with cleaning, polishing, wiping away the last remnants of snow and replacing them with freshly-laundered linen.  
 _(just like our memories_ , one spirit used to say.)

Rin was cleaning the cooking pots outside when the boy rushes to her, all emerald eyes, the swiftness of the fleeting scent of trees.

"What is it now, boy? I'm busy."

_Haku._

She looks up to find a yellow rose thrust to her face. "What?"

_Haku. That's my name._

 

* * *

 

 

One day he comes (home) all bloody and wounded. Rin already knows the answer before she's even asked:

"Who gave you your name?"

She is there when the boy with the eyes of spring turns into the boy with the eyes of winter.

_Yubaba._

And Rin almost shouts,  _No, she gave you a leash._

Just like the rest of us.

 

* * *

 

After an eternity of pretense, Sen.  
(who is crying when they first meet)

She came in a flurry of tears and whines, leaves in the hand of the boy Haku.

"Something you wouldn't recognize, it's called love."

Rin glances at the boiler man, Kamajii, bites back a (black bitter) retort.  _No, that can't be true_ , she thinks. Because, as (if) she remembers correctly, once upon a time, in another life she has loved too.

 

* * *

 

 

On Rin's palm, lines deeply etched: a map of mistakes, regrets; a network of what-ifs and a lifetime of broken promises.  
She realizes that all of this will pass. The wasteland will flourish, die, then relive again. Seasons will come and go, like Sen for Summer, like Haku in Spring.

Winter  
is still bitter,  
but Rin is worse.


End file.
